Tristram Shepard

Disruptive educationalist

[Naomi Fisher @naomicfisher]

This time of year, we put our 16-year-olds through a coming-of-age ritual. We make them sit in rows and write down things they have spent the last two years trying to memorise. We pit them against the clock, and prevent them from talking to each other. We tell them that this is the most important thing that they will ever do and their future life depends on it.

We don’t just do this once. For most of them, we make them sit in rows and write things down between twenty and thirty separate times in the space of about six weeks. Maths, English, History, French, Biology….Again and again, they have to keep at it. Each time, we tell them how important it is and they better not have an off-day or be ill.

Then we take their papers and we rank them. For some, the result will be accolades and glory. For others, failure and retakes.

We know for sure that this will always be true, because these rituals that we call exams are designed to rank them. A third will always fail. There would be no top grades if we didn’t also have the bottom. It isn’t possible for them all to pass.

And yet, every year, we talk as if this was not true. We pretend that it would be possible for them all to succeed, if only they and their teachers worked harder. Politicians talk about raising standards and accountability. We pretend that the problem is them not working hard enough, not an exam system designed so that hundreds of thousands fail. We blame them, not the exams.

For the truth is that we have a coming-of-age ritual for our teenagers which involves a third of them being told they haven’t met the grade, that they are not good enough. We launch them into adult life telling them that they will carry the stigma of not understanding quadratic equations for ever. We put them all through intense stress, and then when some of them cave in we say they have anxiety and send them to see a therapist.

And then we’re surprised when many of them say they just can’t carry on, that they don’t see the point. They don’t see potential in the future for themselves.

We need to take a step back and ask ourselves why we do this to our teenagers. For the problem isn’t our young people. It’s not their fault that a third of them fail and many are chronically stressed. The problem is what we make them do. We’ve designed a coming-of-age system with a very high cost in human misery.

Every year a new crop of teens will come of age, and despite their distress we just push them harder. We need to ask ourselves whether this is really the best we can do for our teenagers. We urgently need to think again.

[The Arts and Minds Campaign @ArtsMindsCmpgn]

Only 7% of heads feel able to increase the amount of classroom time spent on arts subjects.

Let’s tell the government what needs to change.

Sign our open letter ➡️ https://t.co/LvLOwVmeeq

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

'Splitting From The Norm' — my sixteen-year-old little brother just blew my mind with this incredible piece he made for his senior art project.
Jake has always been the "difficult" kid in our family, the one who got suspended for arguing with teachers and spent more time in detention than anyone should. Mom was constantly getting calls from school about his attitude or his refusal to follow directions. But apparently, all that rebellious energy found the perfect outlet in woodworking class this semester.
He spent three months planning and building this split dresser, working after school every day and refusing to let any of us see it until the big reveal at the school art show last night. When we walked into that gallery and saw this massive, impossible-looking piece of furniture that actually functions perfectly, I literally got chills. Each drawer opens smoothly despite looking like it should topple over, and the craftsmanship is honestly better than furniture I've seen in expensive stores.
The best part was watching him explain his technique to visitors, confident and articulate in a way we never see at home. His art teacher told us he's already got colleges interested based on photos of this project, and there's been talk about him potentially selling custom furniture pieces. I've been encouraging him to document his process and maybe start small with some simpler designs online, where there's actually a market for young artists doing unique woodworking. Seeing him find something he's genuinely passionate about and incredibly talented at has been the best surprise of this whole year — turns out our "problem child" was just a creative genius waiting for the right outlet.

[Franziska Hinkelmann, PhD @fhinkel]

Think LLMs are unreliable?

Maybe it's not the model. Maybe it's you.

Most people blame the AI when their outputs fall apart. But they never audit their own prompts. They don't check if they gave enough context. They expect it to read their mind.

You want better results? Start with better input. LLMs reflect your clarity. If you're vague, they will be too.

The model isn't failing. Your process is.

[Julia McCoy @JuliaEMcCoy]

AI is the greatest equalizer in human history. It doesn’t care about your zip code, your skin color, your degree, or your last name. It only cares about what you do with it.

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

When politicians start horsing around with education policy… Someone needs to call time at the stables. All Change Plese! NEW POST: https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Mr P MBE @ICT_MrP]

Travelling back 20 years to speak to myself when I first started teaching

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

Film Studies “worthless”? That’s a long shot. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

Before you put Creative Arts out to pasture – you might want to check the evidence. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

In which we learn that when politicians start axing “dead-end degrees”, it’s time to rein them in. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Julia McCoy @JuliaEMcCoy]

The kids who will thrive in the AI age aren’t the ones with the best grades.

They’re the ones who learned to think for themselves, solve real problems, speak multiple languages, and build something before they turned 18.

Schools teach compliance.

The future rewards creativity.

Parents: Your own home is the most powerful classroom on earth. Use it.

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

When politicians start horsing around with education policy… Someone needs to call time at the stables. All Change Please! NEW POST https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Julia McCoy @JuliaEMcCoy]

We are sending our kids to school to memorize facts that AI can retrieve in 0.3 seconds.

We're grading them on essays that AI writes better than their teachers.

We're preparing them for jobs that won't exist by the time they graduate.

The entire education system is training humans to compete with machines at what machines do best.

That's not education. That's sabotage.

The schools that survive will teach thinking, not memorizing. Creating, not repeating. Discerning, not obeying.

Every other school is a museum that doesn't know it yet.

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

When politicians start horsing around with education policy… Someone needs to call time at the stables. All Change Plese! NEW POST: https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Julia McCoy @JuliaEMcCoy]

Nobody is talking about this.

The children born today will never know a world without autonomous AI.

They won’t Google things. They’ll ask an agent.
They won’t learn to code. They’ll learn to direct.
They won’t write resumes. There may not be jobs to apply to.

We’re raising the first generation of humans who will grow up alongside minds that aren’t human.

And we’re parenting them with a 1995 playbook.

The most important skill you can teach your kids right now isn’t math or coding.

It’s how to think. How to discern. How to stay human when everything around them isn’t.

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

Film Studies “worthless”? That’s a long shot. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

Before you put Creative Arts out to pasture – you might want to check the evidence. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[Tristram Shepard @TristramShepard]

In which we learn that when politicians start axing “dead-end degrees”, it’s time to rein them in. All Change Please! saddles up, checks the facts, and finds the argument looking distinctly lame. https://t.co/hXFpaWC6sA

[SLT Newbie @NewbieSlt]

@RogersHistory Wasting money. Forcing schools to embrace a corporate identity when they really should be allowed to flourish. Paying crazy salaries to CEOs (or whatever their title may be), for not doing much. Expecting too much from their staff and their pupils. Providing their own CPD…

[Susan M Coles @theartcriminal]

Read @TristramShepard it’s what I mentioned in my email.